1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to playback apparatuses, menu display methods, and recording media recording programs thereon implementing the menu display methods. The present invention is applicable to in-vehicle playback apparatuses. More particularly, the present invention provides an intermediate layer menu screen so as to display hierarchal menu screens for selection of content. The intermediate layer menu screen displays both a menu selected in an upper layer menu screen and a plurality of menus displayed in a lower layer menu screen. This allows a user to easily recognize the relationship between the upper layer and the lower layer, even if the menu screen has been shifted to the lower layer.
2. Description of the Related Art
With improvements in the performance of CPUs (Central Processing Units) and various devices, in-vehicle apparatuses having not only a function for playing back music and video contents but also a navigation function have been available in recent years. Menu display methods applicable to such apparatuses that play back the contents have been suggested (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-82746). In the method described in the above-cited patent document, the menu screens for selection of content are displayed in a hierarchical structure.
By displaying hierarchical menu screens for selection of content, the target contents to be selected are gradually narrowed as the layer of the menu screen shifts from an upper layer to a lower layer. This allows a user to rapidly and certainly select a desired content from many contents.
However, in known hierarchical menu screen display methods, it is difficult to recognize the relationship between an upper layer and a lower layer after the menu screen has been shifted to the lower layer. Depending on circumstances, it may be impossible to find a desired content if the destination of the desired content becomes unknown in the lower layer menu screen. This occurs, for example, when the upper layer menu screen has been shifted to the wrong lower layer menu screen due to the selection of a wrong menu. In such a case, the user has to return to the upper layer menu screen, and then shift to the correct lower layer menu screen again. However, once the menu screen has been shifted to the lower layer, the user has difficulty in recognizing the relationship between the upper layer and the lower layer. Thus, it becomes difficult to know the upper layer menu screen where the wrong menu selection has been made in the lower layer menu screen. As a result, the user takes a long time to return to the upper layer menu screen, or gives up the selection of the content.